Barack Obama Blog Biography

In 1967, Barack’s mother, Ann, remarried a fellow student named Lolo Soetoro. Barack Sr. was gone - Ann and Barack had divorced and he’d returned to Kenya as a finance minister, sending infrequent letters to the son he once knew, and knew just once (at least, as far as Barack Jr. could remember).

After the marriage of Ann and Lolo, the family decided to move to Jakarta, Indonesia - Lolo’s homeland and the place that would play host some of Barack’s earliest memories. Just six years old, Barack began his first school classes in Jakarta, most of which were taught exclusively in the Bahasa Indonesia language (now one of the world’s most widespread languages). His first school was St. Francis Assisi Catholic, a religious elementary-like school, where Barack learned his first lessons in the history and methodology of Christianity.

After three years at St. Francis, Barack transferred to a public school for his final year in Indonesia. The school was founded for the children of Dutch aristocrats in the 1930’s, and was assumed into the public school system upon Indonesian independence. There’s little to note of the school, besides its obvious rise to fame upon Barack’s annoucement for candidacy of the President of the United States of America. After several rumors came to light that the school was a “Muslim madrassa”, investigative reporters from the United States debunked the idea that Barack’s education included radical Muslim ties. While it’s true that the makeup of the student population was predominantly Muslim, this runs directly in line with the country itself, and Barack noted this in both of his published books. According to various teachers, headmasters and former classmates of Barack’s, the school was “general”, and featured students of many faiths, including Muslims, Hindus and others.

Among the lessons Barack learned away from school grounds were those he picked up from his step-father, Lolo. As noted in “Dreams from My Father”, Barack came home one afternoon with a large welt on his head from a school fight and his stepfather taught up first and foremost how to stand up for himself. On top of his self-professed toughness earned on the Chicago streets later in life, Barack often points to this lesson as one where he learned that life isn’t always fair, and sometimes it’s necessary to fight back against one’s foes.